It is often desirable to keep various liquid components of a product separated until they are to be used. In some cases the two components are incompatible and will not remain mixed, i.e., they separate out. In other cases, the efficacy of the product is dependent upon a reaction which occurs between the liquids. If these component liquids are mixed in a single container by the manufacturer, this beneficial reaction occurs within the container prior to reaching the end user. Consequently, the user receives a liquid of reduced efficacy.
There is difficulty, however, in combining the liquid components at the point of use. Often these liquid components must be combined in accurate proportions which requires that a certain quantity of each liquid component be accurately measured out. Requiring the user to manually measure out each liquid component and them mix them is undesirable. In addition to being messy and time consuming, many households do not have appropriate measuring devices of sufficient accuracy; particularly for measuring small quantities. Consequently, manually measuring risks inaccurate proportioning and failure to obtain optimal functioning of the product.
Donogue U.S. Pat. No. 3,347,420 which issued on Oct. 17, 1967, discloses a multi-compartment container for dispensing several liquids. A dip tube leads from each liquid storage compartment to a corresponding measuring compartment. The user squeezes the walls of each liquid storage compartment causing liquid to flow through the dip tube and into the measuring compartment until the desired amount of liquid is measured out. This procedure, however, requires discretion on the part of the user to decide how much of each liquid to measure out and when to stop squeezing. Therefore, the risk of failure in achieving the proper proportion is not significantly reduced.
Metering devices which do not require discretion on the part of the user have been used to meter a single liquid from a single compartment container. Among these are the devices disclosed by Steffens et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,788,335 issued on Nov. 29, 1966 and Roder, deceased et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,651 on May 22, 1984. Neither suggest they are suitable for multi-component application.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide a multi-compartment dispensing container for simultaneously dispensing successive uniform volumes of a plurality of liquids without requiring discretion on the part of the end user.
It is also an object of the invention to dispense each component liquid in proper proportion relative to the other liquids.
It is likewise an object of the invention to insure the multi-compartment container is tipped correctly enabling proper functioning of the dispensing mechanism.
It is further an object of the invention to accomplish the aforementioned objectives while reducing package and filling costs to a minimum.
Other objects will become apparent hereinafter.